Disclaimer :
NOT MINE, though I wouldn't mind having
one of the lovely, lovely boys for a Christmas present.

It wasn't as if she had never been touched in
any way by a boy before, mused Kahoko. Tsuchiura-kun had used a tight
grip on her waist to prevent her from breaking her neck the day they
had first met, Hihara-senpai had landed right on top of her with his
face mere inches away from hers that day at Fuyuumi-chan's vacation
home (and oh goodness,
that had been embarrassing), and Len had held her so close she had
nearly suffocated the day he was trying to escape from Amou-san's
'interview' with his fever, but none of those encounters had
quite led her to be permanently thrown out of her depth when she
faced the boys in question again.

The difference probably
lay in the fact that none of them intended
to make her feel uncomfortable, and it wasn't deliberate, and when
they were conscious of it they (Hihara-senpai most of all- how
were he and Yunoki-senpai friends,
anyway?) were nearly as discomfited as she was. And each time it
happened, it had been in the nature of an accident, or absolute
necessity, or someone not being quite themselves. Also, none of them
was hiding the brain of a devil under their respective mops of blue
and green hair. Yunoki-senpai, on the other hand, was rarely more
himself than when he set out to tease and bully her and make her feel
as idiotic as possible- a mission he succeeded in far too often for
her liking.

None of the others had
done, or were ever in a million years going to do, things like
deliberately trap her on secluded parts of the roof and mock her,
draft her into the role of a fake fiancée, or use her name without
her permission (and call them, in turn, by their first name- she
still hadn't gotten over how strange it felt to say Yunoki-senpai's
name, she couldn't even think
it without blushing). They would ever have dreamed (or so she
thought, and she was right in that they would never have used force
against her) of taking the wildly inappropriate liberties he always
did with her when they were alone. Not one of them would have
purposefully violated her privacy and personal space the way he did
at every given opportunity.

And they would certainly never
have kissed her….it might have been a perfectly chaste-looking
touch of his lips to her hair, but given that it was Yunoki-senpai it
felt anything but chaste, and it galled her that the first time she
had ever been kissed it was by a conniving megalomaniac who'd made
it clear beforehand that it was nothing but an act, and she wasn't
even sure just why he was so bothered by her, anyway, unless it was
the natural pull of one duplicitous, deceitful soul to another. He'd
implied it that day in the infirmary, hadn't he?

It was hard to resist the urge to summon and
strangle Lili sometimes for all of this- no
Concours would have meant she would never have crossed paths with
either Yunoki or his dark side, and never had any secrets of her own
to hide. But as she remembered the day she had spent posing as his
fiancée, or even her own initial disbelief that someone as beautiful
as him was a boy, she couldn't bring herself to feel the anger she
supposed someone in her position should have felt towards him.
Instead, all his touch seemed to do to her was reduce her to helpless
jelly until he stopped. The realization stopped her short in her
tracks, and she looked around the roof to make sure he wasn't
anywhere within earshot…

"Arrrgh…damn you,
Yunoki-senpai!"

And just as the last syllable of her curse slid
away on the wind, it was joined by the
faux-concerned voice of Yunoki Azuma...coming from the one place she
hadn't thought to check.

Behind the door. Of course.

"I'm sorry you feel the need to condemn me to
hell, Hino." One elegant finger flicked a speck of dust off his
sleeve as he closed the distance between them.

"Erm…"

The expression on his
face darkened as he reached her. "Hino, if you're going to be so
rude as to curse me when I'm not around to defend myself, I'm
going to have to teach you manners, you know. Among other things."

Not again,
thought Kahoko, frozen against the wall.

"And since the sight of me seems to have
rendered you incapable of even an appropriate greeting, maybe that
should be the lesson for today, hmm?" He planted one hand
on the wall beside her head, effectively cutting off her escape
route.

Kahoko looked at him, torn between the urge to
kick herself and the oddly masochistic
desire to discover just how he was going to bother her today: he
would have found a way to do it even if she'd been quiet as a mouse
before he came in.

.

"What, no response, Hino?" He rested one long
finger- typical musician's fingers, she noted distractedly- on her
upper lip. "That was bad language, just now. Very bad indeed."

"We'll begin with the proper way to address
people, shall we?" His finger was now
pressing against her lower lip, and Kahoko's heartbeat was going at
twice its normal speed. With great reluctance, she finally spoke,
fighting the urge to blush.

"Yunoki-senpai….please stop."

"Now that was rude, you silly girl. No apology
for what you said earlier…and have we forgotten the lesson on what
to call each other in private?" His eyes
glinted maliciously.

"My outburst just now was rude, Yunoki-senpai.
Please forgive me." she murmured. He took a step closer to her,
his other hand drifting to the back of her neck.

"Wrong name, Kahoko.
You know I punish stupid rude girls, don't you?" He traced the
outline of her lips. "And do you want me to shut you up for not
even being able to say my name correctly?" The look in his eyes and
the rapidly shrinking distance between their mouths left her in
absolutely no doubt about just how
the Prince of Seisou could choose to silence her if she didn't do
what he wanted, at once- and it would involve more inappropriate
touching than she was already being subjected to. She took a long,
shaky breath.

"I'm sorry for what I said earlier…Azuma."
Her voice dropped an octave and her cheeks flushed brilliantly red at
the thought of the omitted honorific, but it seemed to satisfy him as
he straightened and stepped away from her.

"Good girl." He smiled, and one long strand of
purple hair fluttered against her cheek in the sudden breeze before
he turned and walked through the door. Kahoko slumped against the
wall, her knees now having turned to water- even jelly was stronger
than her just now, she thought absently .

He really
needed to stop touching her.

Author's
Note: I'm aware that this little
scrap is less than perfect, so please forgive me for any flaws you
find in characterisation or manga/anime canon, or other aspects of
the story. But my true love and fangirlism for La Corda d'Oro only
began at Volume 4, when Dark Yunoki emerged, and this fic is sort of
in homage to that, so I needed to write this.

I'm not very good at writing romance fics,
though, so if you think this was corny or just plain wrong, or if you
liked it, or didn't like it, do leave me a review- I'd really
appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts! I'm aware the spacing
might look weird, but I still haven't figured out FF spacing-
taking the plunge from fangirl to full-on fanfic-writing fangirl is
not easy..

And a big THANK YOU! to
everyone who left reviews on my last story- midorihimesama,
Neon-Fantasy,
chocolateicecream301,
C_V,
Malindorie,
hua and
ayame and Crimson Valentine–
I'll try to update Through The Eyes Of A Sister within the next
couple of weeks. In the meantime - happy holidays!

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.